Page 192 of Lethal Legacy

There’s a strange gleam in her eyes, a hard, brilliant edge that seems to absorb the light and throw it back into the apartment. The almond-shaped eyes that have always seemed liquid soft are changed, turned inward, become a mirror for the room instead of a pool in which I can lose myself.

I can’t look at her.

“Ofelia, you’re stunning.” I turn my smile to a safer target. “That dress is perfect.”

She returns my smile shyly. “Do you really like it? Luce chose it.” She touches her earrings. “These are hers.” It takes me a moment to remember where I’ve seen the earrings before: the first night I took Lucia out to dinner.

The night she signed the contract.

I look at them more closely and choke back a laugh. That night, I dismissed them as cheap knockoffs. Now I wonder how I could have been so blind. Me, who was handling House of Fabergé jewelry before I could walk.

We see what we want to see.

It’s one of the first rules of hiding in plain sight; I know that better than anyone. It never occurred to me, back then, that a poverty-stricken waitress would be wearing priceless antiques in her ears.

“They’re lovely,umnyashka.” And they’ll make every damned Russian snob in the room sit up and take notice. I couldn’t have chosen better myself.

“Mama bought me a different dress.” Ofelia gives me a worried look. “She won’t be happy I’m not wearing it.”

“It’s too late for her to make you change.”

Which Lucia knows damn well.

I almost grin. “I’ll manage Inger, don’t worry.”

“What ’bout me?” Masha, looking distinctly unimpressed, does an unsteady turn in front me.

“Well,myshka,you look beautiful too.” Except I hate everything about seeing Masha in a prim, tight-fitting dress, with a rigid sash around her waist and patent leather shoes. I prefer her tearing around in leggings and a T-shirt, covered in dirt.

“Dwess hurt.” She scowls. “Luce fix-ed it.”

“I’m glad.” I bend down and smile at her. “You won’t have to wear it for long, sweetheart, I promise.”

“We should go.” An unsmiling Mickey, looking a decade older than his years in his tux, stalks to the door without looking at me. “Didn’t you say Nikolai is already waiting for us in the limo?”

Khuy.

He’s not going to make this easy for me.

“Sure.” I smile around at the room, my eyes skimming past Lucia’s face. “Let’s go.”

“Ofelia!” Inger settles herself in the limo next to Nikolai and glares at her daughter. “What are you wearing? I thought I told you—” She turns to Lucia, but whatever temper storm she was about to unleash dies in her throat. Her mouth forms a perfect O of shock.

“Well.Youcertainly pulled out all the stops.” Inger gives Lucia a look with enough daggers to kill ten men.

The sheer satisfaction I feel at her blatant dismay almost makes up for everything else that is currently going to shit in my world.

Almost.

“It’s a pity we couldn’t shop together.” Lucia smiles coldly. “My dressmaker would have made you something that fit properly.”

I bite my lips together to hide my grin. Mickey hastily turns his bark of surprised laughter into a cough. Ofelia is looking at Lucia with something like awe.

Only Nikolai, pressed into the corner opposite mine, doesn’t seem amused. “You look stunning, Inger.” He scowls around her at Lucia, who simply arches her eyebrows and stares right back at him.

Holy fuck.

I wasn’t wrong about her being different tonight. I’ve never seen Lucia do anything but seek the peace. Tonight is like watching another person. Someone born to this life, who knows exactly how to occupy her place in it.

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